Simple Pleasures
by OddLibbie
Summary: Hinata Hyuuga, a shy girl satisfied with the simple pleasures in life, like sticking her fingers within rice grains and licking the carmel of a flan desert with a small spoon, had never truly known what it meant to take a risk. That's about to all change


**Simple Pleasures**

**Chapter 1- The Decision**

**

* * *

****Story Summary**

Hinata Hyuuga, a shy girl satisfied with the simple pleasures in life, like sticking her fingers withinrice grains and licking the carmel of a flan desert with a small spoon, had never truly known what it meant to take a risk. However, after the discovery of a childhood treasure box, she quickly begins her quest to improve other people's lives and even perhaps her own.

**Note from Author: BETA READER FOR THIS STORYWANTED! **

**THE ONE I HIRED IS EITHER DEAD OR IS TOO BUSY TO EDIT MY WORK! PLEASE LEAVE YOUR E-MAIL ON A REVIEW MESSAGE IF YOU'RE INTERESTED. I'LL BE SURE E-MAIL YOU. THX.**

**-ODDLIBBIE**

**Additional note: The following paragraph contains some content which some may find offensive. Read at you're own risk. You have been warned!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't take any credit for the story line, or the characters within this fanfic as both of them are based off of an anime series and a movie. I am writing this for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of others. **

**Bold- Speaking in past tense because me and my partime beta reader don't know how else to put it in pretense**

_Italics- Flashbacks_

Regular- Speaking in pretense

**NOW BACK TO THE STORY! **

* * *

_It is February 16, 1987 as a rare white butterfly makes its way through one of Konoha's busiest market places. Briefly, it passes by a creamy yellow ribbon whose game of flirt and tease with a sake glass goes unseen. While on the second floor of an apartment building overlooking the Konoha market, Hatake Kakashi dressed in black returns home from a funeral. With an indifferent face, only his eye betrays his sadness as he crosses his best friend's name off from his contacts list. _

_In the meantime, the sperm of Hyuuga Hiashi ventures within the womb of his wife Hyuuga Hikari where it finally settles on its mark; an egg._

_Nine months later, Hyuuga Hinata is born. _

**SIMPLE PLEASURES – ODDLIBBIE**

**PROLOGUE**

Hyuuga Hiashi was considered by many to be a stern man with a strong tense jaw line and cold eyes. But for those who truly knew him this was a disposition for the calm and serene man underneath. Recently giving up his job with the Konoha Force, Hyuuga Hiashi decided to settle for a simple desk job within one of the executive offices as a way to ease his wife's mind about the possibility of him not returning home while on the job. Although his job didn't pay much, Hyuuga Hiashi never felt the pressures of the lack of cash coming in. His family inheritance and investment bonds equated to more than enough to sustain not only his family but the next five generations.

Possessing an excellent quick mind, Hyuuga Hiashi concealed his thoughts through his cool modesty, as he was a conservative man. He disliked people who stared at his pale white eyes, the sound of babies who wailed all night long, and clingy sparring clothes after a work out. He liked waking up to his wife's tea every morning, polishing the dojo floor when nobody was looking, and pulling out his dusty scrolls in the study, rerolling them before re-organizing them.

Hyuuga Hikari, Hinata's mother, was a beautiful, petite woman with sharp lavender eyes but frail nerves. A recently retired medic/ teacher from an academy down the street, she spent most of her time caring for her newly born. She disliked stingy market salesmen who sold fruits for more than their worth, people telling her what type of teas taste good (she was a tea expert), and having her flowers wrecked by careless children. Hyuuga Hikari liked watching her husband sip his tea in the morning and granting her his rare smiles as a form of thank you, clipping the yellow leaves from her plants in the garden and observing the recent fashions on the streets below her room.

* * *

Hyuuga Hinata is six. 

Like all little girls she enjoys hugs and kisses from her father but he rarely holds her with the exception of their sparring sessions.

With the rare physical contact, Hinata's heart beats twice as fast, causing her to faint half-way through each session. Thus, Hyuuga Hikari came to the conclusion that her daughter had a weak heart.

Hiashi looked on disappointed as his wife declared their daughter to be unfit for school and for training in the martial arts.

"I think what's best for Hinata is if she's home-schooled," Hikari declared, "and if she discontinues her training,"

Hyuuga Hiashi nodded his head solemnly while tossing glances at their tiny daughter whose mind was currently occupied at the water drops making their way down the window sill. Looking back at his stern wife, he slowly took a sip of her excellent tea before setting it down and exiting the room.

Polishing the dojo floors always did calm him down.

Hikari sighed as she turned to her daughter before calling her for her first lesson.

* * *

Deprived of friends, little Hyuuga Hinata resorted to her imagination for companionship. 

In this world, kunais were really toothpicks for dogs, not weapons.

The comatose neighbor wasn't really in a coma, but getting all of her lifetime rest in one go. Therefore, she would be able to go on for days and nights without sleep.

Gamabunta, a toad who always had a stick in his mouth that made him look like he was smoking tobacco, was Hinata's only friend. However, the closed life within a boring, muddy tank too small for his body made him suicidal. And with each passing day his suicide attempts become more frequent.

Eventually his suicide attempts began to that their toll on Hikari's nerves.

One day after retrieving the ungrateful toad from a horrible fate, Hikari screamed out loud to the heavens, "Enough!"

And so... chibi Hinata watched sadly as her mother tossed the overlarge toad into the gentle stream that connected Kohona to the forbidden forest. Gamabunto croaked rather loudly as though to reply profound words to the petite woman. He paused at the bottom of the stream to look up at a pair of watering pearl eyes. Moving one of his limbs that seemed much like a wave of farewell he continued his journey down the stream never too be seen again.

Disappointed by the loss of a friend, Hikari taught Hinata about her rare flowers and their healing effects. For days Hinata spends hours buried knee-deep in mud as she tended to her mother's flowers, until one day, while accidentally touching a neighbor's hand, the mean man accused Hinata of causing him and rest of the neighbor hood chicken pox.

Traumatized, Hinata sat at home for the rest of the day, lamenting over what she had done. Staring blankly at the TV in front of her flipping through channels she began to feel immense guilt as she caused a widespread of the flu in Canada, sarrs in China and Aid's in Africa.

Days later; Hinata realized she had been had. She spent her day planning and working out her revenge on her neighbor.

Even too this day, nobody knows how the poison ivy was mixed in with the man's clean cloths.

* * *

One day, Hikari brought Hinata to the temple to pray to the gods for a baby sister. 

But alas, falling from the sky wasn't a baby sister, but a deranged man named Orichimaru who believed he was a god and could easily fly.

Hyuuga Hikari was killed instanteously.

Hyuuga Hiashi's anti-social tendencies increased as he became obsessive with building a mini shrine in his deceased wife's garden to house her ashes.

Months and years passed...

In such a cold world, Hinata prefers to dream.

She fantasizes about the day she would have enough money to move out.

* * *

Fifteen years later… 

Hyuuga Hinata is a waitress at a tiny Kohanan café/sake bar, The Shy Katsuyu.

It's August 17th.

In forty-eight hours Hyuuga Hinata's life is about to change...

Only she doesn't know it yet.

She lives quietly among her coworkers and regulars.

The café owner Tsunade, a woman who's real age can never be determined because of some anti-aging secret that she refuses to share. Her most noticeable traits are her rather large breasts, blonde hair, and menacing hazel eyes.

A former medic-nin, she likes sneaking sips of sake behind the counter when no one is looking. She dislikes the sight of blood.

The cashier and tobacconist, Haruno Sakura, is notorious for her wide forehead and strange bright pink hair color. It isn't known whether pink is her true color, as she has had it dyed so many times before finally settling to pink. For arguments sake we'll say it's pink.

She hates the words "wide forehead girl,' especially when they're directed to her.

Mitarashi Anko serves tables with Hinata. She appears plain withthick deep lavender hair pulled back into a pony tail and has scary brown eyes. The girls in her family for the past ten generations have all been talented fighters with intensely strong immune systems. 

She likes snakes; particularly poisonous ones that can kill instantly with one bite.

With a bottle of sake she serves Nara Shikamaru; a failed writer.

A natural genius with an IQ above 200, Shikamaru never fails to come up with the most original and creative plot lines. Unfortunately, being far too lazy for his own good, he can never seem to pick upa pen and write them down.

He likes watching clouds in his spare time and playing shougi.

Anko frowns disapprovingly at the lazy writer as he casually pours himself a glass of sake.

"You could say thank you, you know," she hissed.

Shikamaru just shrugs his shoulders while replying, "too troublesome."

Meanwhile, scowling at the pair is Uchiha Sasuke, Anko's rejected lover. It is believed that she cheated on Sasuke for his older brother, Uchiha Itachi.

A man with red black spotted eyes and black hair that resembles a duck's arse, Sasuke is known to be obsessive with his need to always win. Everyday he comes to the café, always jealously spying on his ex, whilerecording down every one of her actions.

All that he likesaretomatoes and muttering 'die Itachi.'

The bell rings as another woman with two bunson eitherside of her head comes rushing into the café with a cage containing a pale white kitten with bright baby blue eyes.

The woman is Tenten, whose skill and talent in weaponry causes her to travel frequently to teach those skills to eager students around the world. Hinata takes care of her cat while she's away.

Tenten likes the sound she makes as she sharpens her knives.

The cat likes observing its beauty in mirror for hours.

* * *

On weekends, Hinata goes and takes the train to visit and spend the afternoon with her father. 

_One afternoon, in the kitchen of Hiashi's house Hinata quietly blew on her tea before taking a sip. From the corner of her lavender eyes she watched her father gazing solemnly at his cup of tea. An oddity for him, since Hinata's tea tasted alarmingly a lot like her mother's. _

_Placing her tea cup down, she looked inquisitively at her father before replying, "you should use your retirement."_

_Hiashi shook his head slightly, as he snapped out of his stupor to look at his twenty-one year old daughter. Taking in her bluish hair which barely reached the tip of her chin, he secretly approved her haircut. Although he would never say it, when his daughter had chosen to grow her hair long, the resemblance to his Hikari was so frightening he sometimes barely could stand to see her. _

_Hiashi swore that dojo floors almost blinded him, they were that shiny. _

_Bringing himself back into the conversation he asked rather angrily, "to do what?"_

"_To travel," Hiashi's eyebrow rose as his daughter replied the statement without hesitation and the usual stutter that was normally present was no longer there. _

_He could tell that his daughter was dead serious. _

_He sighed as he commented, "ah yes…Your mother and I longed to travel. But we couldn't because of your heart." _

_Hinata nodded her head as she took another sip of her tea, "I know," she murmured._

_However, Hiashi continued as though she hadn't said anything. "But now… now…"

* * *

_

On some Fridays Hinata goes to watch movies at the local theatre, where she spends more time watching the bemusing expressions on people's faces than the actual movie, or spend time picking up the details in the film that others wouldn't care to notice.

She dislikes the fact in the movies that people miraculously get healed in ten seconds after getting injured.

* * *

Hinata Hyuuga has no boyfriend. 

She hastried once or twice, but both of them were a let down.

_Her first, a man named Aburame Shino who was so quiet you may have been by yourself. He never spoke during their dates, apart from asking for something. Hinata never saw his face because of his high collar and sunglasses.Even the night he stayed over for grown up things, he kept both his shirt and sunglasses on the entire time. _

_The second was a man named __Inuzuka Kiba._

_The saying 'a dog's a man's best friend' greatly applied to him, for the entire time Hinata had gone outwith him he would always comment on how his long dead dog, Akamaru's death was unfair. _

"_I swear, "Hinata recalled him saying, "That son of a bastard should've gotten sued. He had no right to kick my dog. Because of that kick my dog's dead."_

"_Ano… I thought he died from food poisoning,"_

"_It's all the same!" the strange dog lover would cry before burying his head in his arms, "Akamaru's dead! Oh Akamaru why'd you leave me?" _

_The other times with Kiba were even weirder, as he would constantly comment on her smell. _

"_Are you having your period right now?" he asked one time. _

_Hinata could only walk faster, leaving Kiba to run after her. _

"_What? Was it something I said? I only asked because you smell like…you know."_

_Despite the fact that Kiba was right about her condition, she never did answer his question. _

_It also didn't help that Kiba would constantly howl and pant every time they bedded each other. Hinata's swollen lip would be evidence of her hard attempts to stifle her laugher during their lovemaking. _

Rather than spending her time on boyfriends, Hinata cultivated a taste for simple pleasures; dipping her hand in a sack of rice grains, licking the caramel of a flan desert with a small spoon, and making origami cranes to send down the Konoha canal.

* * *

_While cooking her next meal, Hinata caught site of a neighbor who lived in the apartment building right along side of hers. Turning off the lights before pulling out a pair of binoculars Hinata spied on the old man as he engrossed himself in an old book. He's real name was Sarutobi, but all that knew of him, referred to him as the "the glass professor." _

_It was said that he knew all the techniques that there was to know about martial arts, but he could never practice them because of a defect that caused him to have brittle bones. _

_A simple handshake was said to break his entire hand. _

_None the less, he spent most of the time lockedin the confinements of his apartment, where he would read and paint all day.

* * *

_

Time changed nothing.

Finally on August 18th comes the event that will change her life forever...

Busy standing in front of her mirror, Hinata is gently applying some nighttime moisturizer and taking care of other things, like brushing her teeth.

In the background of her small single roomed apartment, the TV is busy talking away about the daily news, particularly tragedies.

Opening her mouth slightly to pinch some more color into her pale cheeks, Hinata barely takes notice of her silky white nightgown that reached just above the knees.

"And in other news today," the news anchor exclaimed suddenly, "beloved Prince Arashi has died tragically after being shot while on international business."

Hinata's pale eyes widened in horror, as she diverted her intensified gaze from the mirror to the television screen, where a picture of a fine handsome man is displayed.

Hinata recalls the photo easily enough. It had been taken in the spring of last year during a diplomatic meeting between Konoha and Suna. The easy going, kind hearted, blonde prince was shaking hands with another man whose face was very ice cold. Prince Arashi didn't seem to notice, as he flashed the camera the bright smile he had been well known for. The 'hazardous raining women smile' it had come to been known as.

Throughout her entire life Hinata has been surrounded by a number of women, including her own mother, that constantly comment on the Prince's good looks.

Above his looks, however, Prince Arashi was an excellent leader.

Amidst her gawking at the sudden death of the handsome prince, Hinata felt the round glass lid of her lotion slip from her grasp towards the floor.

With her eyes still glued to the screen Hinata slowly makes her way to the back of the bathroom as the words of the anchor continue to fill up the entire apartment...

"It would seem that Prince Arashi's killer is none other than the infamous international terrorist Kyuubi Nine Tails." Hinata shudders involuntarily at the picture of the terrorist. His piercing red eyes with deep black slits in the middle seemed to bore through the viewer's soul. Although the man had a finely chiseled jaw line and deep tan skin, nothing could rival his flaming red hair. Hinata would've dared to call him handsome, had it not been for the small fact that he was a killer.

"…originally part of the Omi's clan, no word has yet been released as to the cause of the shooting, but reports say that Kyuubi's trial hearing will be on the following Tuesday."

Feeling for the lid Hinata tore her gaze from the screen to the floor where the glass lid sparkled mischievously at her. Ignoring her thoughtsof paranoia Hinata bent down to pick up the lid only to find one of the tiles along the edge of her wall slightly askew.

Furrowing her brows, she gently places a pale finger to pull at the tile, which immediately gave way revealing a hole in the wall.

Ignoring the nagging voice in her head that told her to leave the hole as is, before she broke the rest of her apartment, Hinata got on all fours to take a peek inside.

Part of her comes up with the possibility of there being mice and just before she's about to scream, Hinata catches site of a small metal box shimmering in the darkness.

She hesitantly grabs it and pulls it out.

The news's story is immediately forgotten as the childhood treasure box lies in Hinata's warm hands.

Only an ancient adventurerer discovering a secret tomb could possibly understand how Hinata felt at the moment, for in her hands lies a box filled with fond memories of a certain child who had come to pass.

Carefully, Hinata pulls at the various articles placed in the box. Among them, is a picture of a somewhat plump boy who is grinning so hard at the camera his eyesare squinted. Thereis also pictures of food arrangementsthat strike Hinata as odd. However,she marvels at them all the same. There is also a pair of chopsticks with silver dragons engraved and a few recipes.

After goingthrough the box, Hinata places it along her bedside table as she stares at her pale ceiling, contemplating.

**Who did the box belong to and where is he?**

**Wouldhe remember the box?**

By the end of the night, Tenten's cat is asleep in front of the mirror, yet again, and Hinata finally reaches a decision.

**She would return the box to its owner. If he liked it, then she would be a regular do gooder. If not, then too bad.**


End file.
